


Poor Chemistry

by timetravelingvampire



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, POV Tony Stark, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, The Author Regrets Nothing, except writing fics that came from a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelingvampire/pseuds/timetravelingvampire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started after Ultron. Tony swore off robots, took a look around his team, and decided what everyone needed was for Steve to get drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Chemistry

It started after Ultron. Tony swore off robots, took a look around his team, and decided what everyone needed was for Steve to get drunk. The guy was wound up tight, and, you know, yeah, Cap had lost everyone he loved, but Cap and Sam were sure they were going to find Bucky any day - and wasn’t that something that had thrown Tony for a loop? He’d grown up hearing about Cap and Bucky, and Howard was sure Cap would survive being frozen, but he’d never once thought Bucky was anything but dead.

Tony himself hadn’t put the rumors about the Winter Soldier and Bucky together, even after that time a few years ago when he was looking through old R&D projects he’d signed off on without reading and found descriptions of a robotic arm and updates dating back decades; he’d meant to see what records his father had on it and if his father had even known because it could be a breakthrough in prosthetics. Then he was kidnapped, and it slipped his mind until Project INSIGHT. It might be that the Winter Soldier killed his parents, but it was Stark money that gave him that arm, so as far as Tony figured, it was all a wash.

Anyway, Cap was strung up tighter than a kite, what with Aunt Peggy dying and Bucky still being in the wind and then trying to make this team mesh. He needed to relax, take a load off, get drunk. Tony decided to call it team bonding, read up on chemistry in a night, and started plying Cap with various synthesized alcoholic beverages.

The first couple had to be consumed by the gallon for any sort of reaction, and that just meant Cap was in the bathroom most of the night. That wasn’t the effect Tony was going for. The third had made Cap at least relax, and he spent most of the night catching up on Disney and Pixar movies; they were still trying to forget his reaction during the first ten minutes of “Up.” Or maybe that was just him. Cap had been his hero as a kid, after all.

But this one? This one, Tony was sure would work. He ran the equations again, made Bruce check them - “Tony, I’m not that kind of doctor” - and, at the next team bonding night, served Cap a nice steaming cup of, well, something that looked like it was licorice-flavored. Cap sniffed it and sighed before quaffing the whole damn thing in one go.

And Tony was right. It did work. Turned out Captain America was a touchy-feely, handsy sort of drunk. He was currently curled up on one of the couches, leaning against Sam and playing with Natasha’s hair. Natasha was surprisingly allowing it, and Clint was tucked on top of the armchair, recording it to send to his wife (and possibly kids? Did one send video of inebriated superheroes to children? Tony wasn’t sure). Sam, Rhodey, and Vision were having some sort of chat about battlefield wounds (he was pretty sure Rhodey and Sam were just comparing war stories, and since Vision couldn’t actually get human injuries, he was fascinated), Thor was orating a glorious epic to an enraptured Wanda, and Maria Hill was in the corner dishing with Jane Foster and her assistant.

Tony nodded to himself. Job well done. Team brought together. He sat down next to Bruce and threw himself back into mechanical engineering, drawing up plans for a new plane, better than the one Bruce had waltzed off with from nuSHIELD. He was engrossed for hours. He barely noticed when people left the room or when a blanket was tucked around his body.

He did notice when an unholy screech emanated from the direction of the dormitories though.

In fact, it startled him, he dropped his tablet, and, in trying to get up, he tripped over the blanket, fell on the floor, and hit his head.

That’s probably why he thought he was dreaming.

After all, it wasn’t every day that a de-serumed Steve Rogers ran into their communal living room naked.

He chastised his brain for wanting it to be a naked serumed Captain before picking himself up, sitting back on the couch, and curling up with the blanket; maybe he was lucid-dreaming and could change things up. Maybe it was a dream within a dream. Maybe it was...

“Oh, no, no, you don’t, Tony,” Steve said, yanking the blanket from Tony and wrapping it around his own naked body. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

“Oh. It’s not a dream?” Tony asked.

“Am I normally naked in your dreams?” Steve asked, his voice shrill.

Tony decided not to answer that question. He was saved by the others groggily coming into the room in various states of dishabille. Dr Foster’s assistant - he needed to remember her name sometime soon – gasped, and Clint took out his phone again. Steve noticed and tried to grab it from him, but hilariously, Clint was actually taller than Steve now and kept it away from him by efficiently standing on the couch and holding it over his own head. Sam snorted. “Pretty sure you were a little bit bigger when I went to sleep, Steve.”

Steve glared at Sam, his ears pink. “It’s Tony’s fault. Tony, what was in that drink?”

Huh. Had he discovered the anti-serum? Howard had spent years trying to re-engineer it. He stood up, immediately heading towards the science labs, but Thor stopped him with a hammer to the chest. “Brother, answer the question.”

“Bruce checked out my work! He said it was okay,” Tony tried to defend himself. “Why are you naked?”

Steve blushed, and Tony thought it was fascinating how the red spread from his cheeks down to his chest. Steve noticed everyone staring and pulled the blanket up closer to his shoulders. “I sleep naked sometimes,” he tried to say nonchalantly.

Tony raised an eyebrow at this, and even Thor let the hammer drop. Natasha smiled. “Steve, you said you always tell the truth.”

“Oh, fine, he was naked because of sex. SEX. S. E. X. Do you normally get fully dressed after sex? He fell asleep Cap-size and woke up de-serumed. It’s either multiple orgasms or your invention, Tony.”

“It’s, uh, not the multiple orgasms,” Steve interjected.

Everyone swiveled from the first speaker to stare at Steve again. Clint nearly dropped the phone but gamely continued on recording. “You know I didn’t check your work, Tony,” Bruce interrupted, trying to get the room back on track, which might have worked any other day, one on which Natasha hadn’t procured popcorn from somewhere, and she and Wanda weren’t munching it on the couch, whispering and looking at the others, probably trying to figure out who else had been with Steve. “Can you reverse-engineer it?”

Tony shrugged. “Probably,” he said. “I am a genius, but are we really going to ignore the naked elephant in the room?”

Steve got a mulish, stubborn look on his face. “Doesn’t concern you.”

Just then, Pepper entered the room, clad in a silk robe and yawning. “Why’s everyone up so early?”

Steve smirked, looked around, and amended his statement. “Okay, it might concern you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know that I like the end, but I'm sick of staring at it. Also, deliberately left ambiguous, mostly because I like ambiguity in fics. Also, also, NO, NO INFIDELITY. Steve took advantage of Pepper walking in just then. And, you know, I ship everyone is poly because Avengers anyway.


End file.
